


Verdant Awakening

by sureynot



Category: Original Work, Role-Playing Game - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Body Dysphoria, Horror, Post-Apocalypse, Science Fiction, Zombies, free form, mutations, plant people, symbiosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:22:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23059195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sureynot/pseuds/sureynot
Summary: She wakes up in the middle of the jungle with no memories and a body that isn't entirely her own.
Kudos: 4





	Verdant Awakening

First there was only darkness and cold.

Her body was seizing, clenching, cramping, and contorting painfully as her heart thudded loud in her ears. Every fiber of her being was telling her to move. _Run, fight hide!_

But she couldn't move; her muscles were locked in such horrible spasms as if paralyzed with fear. She was mortally afraid. She couldn't breathe and she was cold, so cold.

And then there was light filtering in dimly through her closed eyelids. Light and eventually warmth.

Icy cold melted away ever so slowly and after a while she became aware of sensations. A soft, spongy dampness bellow her, the brightening, warm light above her.

Something wet trickled and sounds of life surrounded her like the most beautiful song; buzzing, chirping, croaking, twittering.

She felt safer then and her muscles began to relax. Long after those first moments she realized that fear had been residual, leftover from a body in the throes of certain death.

But in those first moments, she knew nothing. A sudden, intense wave of energy sped through her and her eyes lurched open as she took a sudden, deep breath. The air was humid and warm and it stung her lungs. She gasped and froze for a moment, struggling to take in air as if it was her first breath. Only when the breathing became easier, less painful, did her eyes fully register her surroundings. It was as if they opened for the first time and the white light hurt, but the world she beheld was breathtakingly beautiful.

She laid in a verdant, green grove. All around her, tall, tall trees grew from fertile, black earth, which was blanketed in green moss and mushrooms of all colors and shapes imaginable. She could barely see the sky through the thick canopy. The white light from the sun filtered through the dark leaves in glittering streams, one of which bathed her in soft light. Looking closer, the trees were covered in thick vines. Shrubs and vibrant flowering plants emerged out of the jungle and into the clearing, and she could hear the steady rush of water. A nearby stream.

But too soon the awe wore off and she found herself having no memory of this place. No memory of what made her wake up so terrified. A dim fragment of a memory tells her she had been running, no sprinting. And there was blood and pain.

Wherever she was, she needed to move. Perhaps there were clues of what had transpired.

Synapses and nerves that had lain dormant began to fire. Muscles began to move. With more effort than she anticipated, she sat up from a spongy bed of thick, green moss and fungus, though tendrils of white filaments restricted her movements, holding her down. Fear gripped her as she observed long white strands embedded in her molted skin, connecting her to the fertile, black earth. Her skin was a collection of pink flesh, green moss, and those thin, white threads which created meandering patterns across her skin. They connected and branched away like nerve synapses. Now that she paid attention, she could feel their connection with her. They were pulsing with energy and nutrients, feeding her with minerals from the earth. The heads of tiny mushrooms sprouted from her and she could feel a strange, soft tugging as the wind scattered their spores. Spores like beautiful golden dust, glittering in the sunlight that dappled the verdant jungle clearing.

There was something else too. Something bright inside her that felt both separate and a part of her at the same time. It pulsed and breathed with the mushrooms and moss connected to her skin, with the breath of the trees surrounding her. She realized she could feel and hear and sense the whole jungle as if it were her own heartbeat. She didn't know what the brightness was and it terrified her.

With a start she screamed, a strangled, hoarse sound, as if she hadn't used her voice in years. She gripped the white filaments with dirt and moss- encrusted hands and yanked them from her skin and searing, fiery pain assaulted all her nerves as if the fibers and her neurons were one.

She gasped and let go of the tendrils with trembling hands, bringing them to her face. Her nose and ears and hair felt familiar. Perhaps they were still the same, though she did not remember what she looked like.

Examining the rest of her body, she noticed places were covered in a material that obscured some of her familiar-yet-not skin. Most of it had decayed, though the tattered remnants were soft and woven and faded. She knew hands made it. Hands like hers. There was a shiny thing around her neck. It was silver and hard, unlike the soft, living things around her. There were markings on the silver tags that hung from it, which said:

_Zinka Blythe_  
_5'5", 130 lbs_  
_Coastal Colony_

The top etchings looked the most familiar. She felt as though she had seen them often, heard the words often, despite the fact that she didn't know how to say them. Her name, possibly. The other etchings were unfamiliar to her. What did they mean?

It took all the strength she had left to detach herself from the ground and the pain nearly sent her back to the horrible dark void she woke from. Staggering on weak, trembling legs, she crawled away from the spot she had been lying in, turning back to see the impression of her body in the moss and earth. The plants underneath her had died and decayed, replaced by fungi. It looked as if she had been there for a long time. As terrified and confused as she was, she was too weak to flee.

She spent days in that clearing. Fruit and insects were plentiful and she found the sunlight gave her enough energy to survive on those meager rations. After a few days, she had rested and built up enough strength to walk short distances and found the creek, drinking of its cool, clear water. The white filaments emerged from her fingers and the flesh of her hands and feet to drink from the stream as well and she wondered what she was. Had she always had other things living on her and inside her?

Days, months, possibly several years past since those first days in the clearing and she never stopped wandering, searching for others like her. She had stayed in the clearing long enough for it to feel like home, though she must have wandered far from it by now. In the clearing she learned how to move, hunt, and survive. She had much to learn about her body. It felt new, and though her memories were few and distant, she knew parts of her were not the same.

As time passed, she stopped fearing the brightness inside her. Fear turned to curiosity and curiosity turned into acceptance. It was deeply entwined with her, so deep that its life-force and hers were inseparable. Parts of her seemed to move of their own accord, seeking out invisible streams of water deep within the earth with long white roots. She could use them to drink the hidden water, though this was much slower than drinking normally. The soft, green fronds that textured her skin like patchwork craved the light. And the light fueled her just as well as food filled her belly. These new additions were strange but over time she adapted with them. She learned to harness their strengths and balance out their weaknesses.

She knew she came from somewhere, from someone, but the specifics were lost in the indeterminate time she had been gone. She moves and breathes like the creatures that walk, fly, and crawl through the jungle, yet she can feel the presence of the still ones; the plants and fungi that cover the world. Like all of them she had a mother once.

Mother.

Memories of a figure like her, a woman with soft, though fuzzy features. The affection and longing she feels towards that being has lessened with time. She feels a stronger pull towards the sunlight, the water, and the tall, tall trees that give her shelter from the strange, horrible beasts on the jungle floor. They sustain her. They give her life and energy. They are mother now. Perhaps the bright, pulsing life within her is also mother. This force brought her back and made her anew. She doesn't fear it anymore.

Now she lies on a sturdy branch, high above the dark jungle floor. Safe. The weak morning sun warms her and she feels energy move through her once again. She breathes the humid, dewy air with lungs as the rest of her absorbs oxygen and sunlight, turning it into fuel. That fuel isn't enough to sustain her but it will suffice until she finds food.

Her gaze flickers down to the tags at her neck and she regards them as she waits for enough sun energy to move. Zinka Blythe...

"Zeen...ka...Buh-lie-th" She tries to pronounce the strange syllables. They fall clumsily from her lips. She learned quickly that she doesn't make the sounds most creatures make, though she can imitate their calls well enough to trick them into falling prey to her traps. Her voice was built for a different kind of language, something more nuanced. She remembers signs written in strange, angular runes and the voices of others like her. Words and phrases filter through her memories occasionally as well as the faces of others she had been close to, though most of their names are forgotten. She does not remember exactly where she lived but she remembers what it looked like.

She did not live in a nice green place like this. It was dark. Tunnels made of earth with metal pipes and dwellings that had been forged and built by many, many hands. That place doesn't feel like home anymore. Even if she found it, she doesn't think she could stay, though sometimes she practices her old language, singing the words to the gently swaying fungal stalks that grow from her shoulders and the mosses that make their home in her skin.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an origin story write-up I did for a character I made for my DnD groups most recent adventure - a homebrew campaign! 
> 
> The campaign is set in the distant future, after humanity destroyed everything and so on. It's post-apocalyptic with a style similar to Miyazaki's Naussica Valley of the Wind. Essentially the over-world is so toxic and strange that humanity moved civilization underground and under the sea. 
> 
> My character was a human who died from exposure to the over-land radiation and some other stuff. She's essentially a zombie/plant person, who was reanimated by a mysterious life-force that's powering the jungle around her. 
> 
> I enjoyed writing this so much that I hope to make a story out of it! At the very least I plan to write up our little group's adventures and post them as short stories. I'm very excited to explore this world more and hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
